Runaways (disambiguation)

The Runaways were a seminal all-women band who performed proto-punk heavy metal music in the 1970s.

Widely believed at the time to have been a novelty act formed by producer Kim Fowley, who thought the notion of young women dressed in leather and lingerie performing heavy metal music was highly marketable, the band released its first record in 1976. Despite the apparent novelty, the girls in the band were proficient at playing their instruments and wrote or co-wrote most of the band's material and, as later became obvious, were serious about their music. Their best known song is "Cherry Bomb", which has been covered by many other bands, including the Riot grrrl band Bratmobile. They broke up in 1979, but not before launching the careers of Joan Jett and Lita Ford, who went on to achieve substantial success as solo artists in the 1980s. Cherie Currie went on to a briefly successful career as an actress, appearing in Foxes with Jodie Foster, before falling into heavy drug use. She later recovered and wrote an autobiography, Neon Angel. Michael Steele later joined the Bangles.

The Runaways paved the way for female oriented punk bands like X-Ray Spex, Bikini Kill and most recently, The Donnas.

Discography:

• The Runaways, 1976
• Queens of Noise, 1977
• Live in Japan,1977
• Waiting For The Night, 1977
• And Now. . . The Runaways, 1978